About Some Dissertations Devoted to the Lithuanian National Movement Defended at Foreign Educational Institutions 1

LITHUANIAN HISTORICAL STUDIES 17 2012 ISSN 1392-2343 PP. 167–185 REVIEW ESSAYS ABOUT SOME DISSERTATIONS DEVOTED TO THE LITHUANIAN NATIONAL MOVEMENT DEFENDED AT FOREIGN EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS 1 Darius Staliūnas Over the recent decades in Western Europe and the United States, more than one doctoral dissertation connected in one way or another with the subject of Lithuanian nationalism (the National Movement) has been defended 2. Some of these studies are important not only to foreign researchers who do not know the Lithuanian language, but also to Lithuanian scholars. Some of these theses are serious academic studies, it is true, on fairly narrow topics. 3 Perhaps the strongest work was produced and defended at Brandeis University 4, by Nerijus Udrėnas, who analysed how the modern Lithuanian identity is emerging and changing 5. It is based on the premise 1 This article was printed in the Lithuanian language in: Archivum Lithuanicum 14 (2012), pp. 373–392. 2 N. Ūdrėnas, Book, Bread, Cross, and Whip: the Construction of Lithuanian Identity in Imperial Russia, Unpubl. Doctoral Dissertation (Brandeis University, 2000); V. Krapauskas, Nationalism and Historiography: The Case of Nineeteenth- Century Lithuanian Historicism (Boulder, co.: 2000); L. Eriksonas, National He- roes and National Identities: Scotland, Norway and Lithuania (Brussels, 2004); A. Janužytė, Historians as Nation State-Builders: the Formation of Lithuanian University 1904–1922, academic dissertation, series: Studies in European Societies and Politics: Jean Monnet European Centre of Excellence (Tampere, 2005) <http:// acta.uta.fi/pdf/951-44-6313-7.pdf> [viewed on 19 June 2012]; C.J. Nikolajew, Zum Zusammenhang zwischen nationaler Identitätsbildung und Katholischer Kirche in Litauen in der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts bis zum Beginn des 20. Jahrhun- derts, Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, 2005 <http://tobias-lib.uni-tuebingen.de/ volltexte/2005/2154/pdf/Dissertation_Christina-Nikolajew.pdf> [viewed on 19 June 2012]; V. Petronis, Constructing Lithuania: Ethnic Mapping in Tsarist Russia, ca. 1800–1914, Södertöm Doctoral Dissertations, 21 (Stockholm, 2007); T. Balkelis, The Making of Modern Lithuania (London and New York, 2009). Most of the authors spent part of their academic studies in Lithuania. 3 V. Petronis, Constructing Lithuania. 4 Incidentally at this university Šarūnas Liekis also defended his doctoral dissertation, which later received attention in the academic world, and was published in the English language: Š. Liekis, A State within a State? Jewish autonomy in Lithuania 1918–1925 (Vilnius, 2003). 5 N. Ūdrėnas, Book, Bread, Cross, and Whip. 168 REVIEW ESSAYS that moments of crisis (such as the 1863–1864 uprising, the events in 1893 in Kražiai when Catholics opposed the closure of a Catholic church, the 1905 revolution, and so on) best reflect the change in identity. The author shows that at the beginning of the 20th century the most important Lithu- anian opponent ‘clarifying’ the national identity and fighting for national rights were the Poles. Recently, not only Lithuanian researchers, but also other scholars interested in Central and East European history, ever more frequently ‘discover’ the dissertation by Udrėnas and base their work on it. Unfortunately, it was not published, and researchers are forced to use the manuscript. Of course, it is unlikely it would be meaningful to publish it now, because in the last decade, many new works on the subject have appeared. Nevertheless, some of these dissertations deserve not only words of praise. I will discuss two of them by Tomas Balkelis and Audronė Janužytė in greater detail. The first is important due to its broad themes; moreover, it has been published in Lithuanian. The second stands out for its extraor- dinary inconsistency and the lack of clarity of its object. xxx The dissertation by Balkelis was published initially in English, and in 2011 a translation appeared in the Lithuanian language. One has to say that both versions of the book are written in fluent language. The Lithuanian translation is essentially identical to the English version. The author only omitted the discussion of Lithuanian historiography. The book consists of seven chapters. The first presents the economic, social, political and cultural contexts of the Lithuanian National Movement. The second is devoted to the initial phase of the activities of the Lithuanian patriots. The third chapter deals with the relationship between intellectuals and peasants, the mobilisation of patriots in Vilnius. At the centre of the fourth is the 1905 revolution, with particular attention paid to the Great Seim of Vilnius. The fifth focuses on the debate about gender relations. The sixth chapter is about the post-revolutionary period, when intellectuals were mostly concerned with cultural activities. In the seventh, the author tries to determine what influence exile in Russia during the First World War had on the formation of the Lithuanian political elite. CONCEPTUAL PROPOSITIONS In the context of Lithuanian historiography, Balkelis’ book is new. Unlike the frequently occurring factual or very narrow works in Lithuania, the book The Making of Mo dern Lithu- ania tries to provide a broader view of the Lithuanian National Movement (nationalism). Such an ambitious task should be welcomed. In the book, one can see several main subjects: the appearance of the Lithuanian secular patriotic intelligentsia and its views, the ‘delay’ of the idea of independ- REVIEW ESSAYS 169 ence, and the spread of the national idea among the masses. Next I will take a closer look at the author’s reasoning. Balkelis believes that the emergence of patriotic intellectuals in an institutional sense is associated with Imperial Russian educational institutions in which Lithuanians became acquainted with different ideologies: Thus for the members of the nascent Lithuanian intelligentsia, it was their direct exposure to the modern intellectual culture of Moscow, St Petersburg and Warsaw that imbued their restive student enthusiasm with modern ideas of nationalism, liberalism and socialism. Their subsequent disillusionment with the limited profes- sional prospects that the Tsarist state had to offer to them gradually turned them into political activists. Having discovered their inferior position in the ethnic, social and political structure of Russia, some of them turned to the search of their ethnic identity, national homeland and its people (p. 12). This, in principle, constructivistic interpretation is not entirely new, it has already been applied in Lithuanian historiography 6. Of course, one might wonder whether or not these individuals had adopted these ideas prior to their studies in higher education schools. Moreover, one can find in historical literature testimonies stating that the future leaders of the national movement had decided to work for the benefit of the modern Lithuanian nation while still at grammar school 7. The book gives a lot of space to the views, activities, identification and similar questions of the secular intelligentsia. In Lithuanian historiography, dominated by primordialism, a different view, in principle, is to be welcomed; and such or a similar constructivistic interpretation, of course, can exist. Maybe it can to some extent explain the views of the secular intelligentsia; however, any observations about part of the patriotic intellectuals will always give only limited information about the national elite and its influence. In this case, one cannot understand why one of the most important groups in the Lithuanian National Movement, the Catholic clergy, is ignored. At the beginning of the book Balkelis notes: This book is largely concerned with the secular intelligenstia, while the clerical elites are only occasionally discussed as contributors or opponents to the national movement (p. xviii). However, he does not provide any arguments for this choice. One can surmise some of the author’s reasoning: the interpretation of the birth of the patriotic intelligentsia, along with Lithuanian nationalism, provided in the book cannot possibly explain the active integration into the National Movement by some Catholic intellectuals. At times, Balkelis tries to 6 V. Sirutavičius, ‘Vincas Kudirka’s programme for modernizing society and the problems of forming a national intelligentsia’, Lithuanian Historical Studies, 5 (2000), pp. 99–112. 7 D. Mačiulis, ‘Jonas Šliūpas ir lietuvių–latvių vienybės idėja’, Acta Humani- tarica Universitatis Saulensis, Mokslo darbai, 12 (2011), p. 83. 170 REVIEW ESSAYS downplay the influence of the nationally conscious Lithuanian priests: he notes in several places that at the end of the 19th century the secular intelligentsia become national movement leaders, while the influence of priests decreased. In one place this change is dated ‘from the 1890s’ (p. 14), in another ‘from the mid-1880s’ (p. 28). Furthermore, the book states that the Catholic-oriented illegal Lithuanian press was primarily concerned with Catholic values rather than Lithuanisation. However, the numerous studies by Vilma Žaltauskaitė have shown that among the most important goals of these newspapers, especially Tėvynės sargas, were not only defending the Catholic Church against russification, but the spread of the ideas of modern Lithuanian nationalism in the Catholic rural community 8. The elimination of clerical intellectuals from this study is difficult to understand, especially as the author himself acknowledges the dominant role of

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